Last Week of 2013

Bonjour!

Our last week before 2013 is going to be a busy one!  

Since our students are so busy with memorizing their parts for our holiday program and for our presentation on France, there will be minimal homework this week.  

They may need some assistance in their homework assignment on Wednesday.  I have asked the students to write a goodbye letter to Wren as she will be leaving for the rest of the school year after break.  She and her family will be in Florida for the remainder of the school year.  We are excited for her, but we will miss her terribly.  The letters are meant to be a surprise to Wren, so let's keep it on the down low.  

In Writing Workshop/Social Studies we will be finishing up on our final drafts and adding details on our poster boards.  We are so excited to show you what we've learned.  There will be a parent presentation on Friday at 2:00 followed by a multicultural feast with all 2nd and 3rd grade classes in the MPR that will last until the end of the day.  

Speaking of the feast, we've had a lot of people offer to bring cups, cutlery, and plates, which we so appreciate.  However, we definitely need some food!  So far we have yule log, crepes and some french bread coming our way.  As a class, we are planning on making truffles to bring and would love if you could bring something too.  I know that we are all extra busy this time of year and I totally understand if not everyone can bring a dish. It doesn't have to be anything fancy or even traditional French.  Here's a few ideas:  

• potatoes au gratin
• croissants
• quiche
• potato salad
• nicoise salad
• cheese plate
• French toast sticks
• easy beef bourguignon

There are a bunch of easy recipes on the food network website: http://www.foodnetwork.com/topics/french/index.html

In all other academic areas, we will be reviewing and reinforcing skills and concepts that we have learned so far.  I find it's best not to introduce new concepts right before our two week break.  

Thanks again for all that you do.  Have a fantastic Holiday Break!   I'll see you out on the hill!

  

Last Two Weeks of 2013!

We are on a sleigh ride to Christmas Break people!  Wow!  Time is just racing by!

Here's what we're up to in Melissa's Third Grade!

Math:  We are plugging along with multiplication and division.  We are learning how to roll our eights and continue practicing with our threes, fours, and sixes.  We just started to learn strategies to help us solve basic division problems and have even dabbled with remainders!

Readers Workshop:  This week readers workshop is divided into two parts; nonfiction reading and fiction reading.

In our nonfiction reading, students will continue to monitor their comprehension and synthesize the information their reading about their french topic.  Many students are doing this independently while others require a bit more support.  Many of us don't have much background knowledge to draw from, so this information is all new.  We are learning so much and having a great time!  Many of us are making plans to visit France ourselves someday!

Fiction reading is focused on continued practice of the skills we have acquired so far this school year.  We are choosing books that are just right, committing to a book from start to finish, and making sure to we are paying attention to what we read, not just skimming over the words.  We make mental movies in our mind and monitor our comprehension.  When our mental movie gets blurry, we stop, ask questions, reread and read on!  We rock!

Writers Workshop:  It's all about France for the next two weeks.  Students are finishing up on their topic paragraphs and are moving on to writing introductions and conclusions. We are hoping to get everyone going on their poster board by Wednesday this week.  We are planning to present our amazing posters next week. I will send home some information later this week about days and times.

Speaking of days and times, here is a list of upcoming events:

This week:
Tuesday December 10:  Health Fair
Friday December 13:  Book Buddy Day  Wear your pajamas, bring your favorite stuffy/pillow to snuggle and read with your kindergarten buddy!

Ski Forms for Ski Program:  They will be coming home today.   Please get them back ASAP!  They are due back by December 18th at the latest!  The cost is $85 per student.  Payments are due by January 10th.

Next week:

Holiday Program!!

The 3rd and 4th grade holiday program is on Thursday December 19 at 5:30 p.m.  Students need to report our classroom at 5:15.  Prepare to have your mind blown!

Thanks for reading!

Vive la France!

Welcome back everyone!  I hope your break was filled with family, friends, food, and pow!  I sure had fun making laps on lower Ruby Chief  this weekend!

Anyway, our study of France is underway.  This week we will be spending time breaking down our individual topics into two-three subtopics to research.  We've done pretty well with this so far, but we could always use a little bit of help.  If you are available to help us, we would love it!  We'll be doing our research daily from 12:00-1:00 and would love any help we can get.  The more the merrier!

This week we are just on a mad hunt for facts about our topics.  We are learning how to take notes and will be focusing on putting facts into our own words and eventually into paragraph form.  Our final product will be a poster board that will look a bit like this:

This poster board will combine what we have learned in our study of nonfiction texts and what we've learned about France.  It's a lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun.

Spelling is all new this week!  We are no longer doing spelling sorts.  Please read the note I sent home today for more info.

Math this week will continue with our focus on measurement, area, and perimeter.  We plan to wrap this unit up by the end of the week.  We also are just learning how to roll our fours!  We are so awesome!

France is all the rage in our writing and of course our social studies time as well.  This week we will be learning about the geography of France, the French Flag and may even get into a little bit of government if we have time.

I think that's all for now.  Thank you so much for reading!